Monday, 13 September 2010

Monday Evening Photo. 13/09/2010.

G'day all, Brisbane has three major city stations, Roma Street, Central and South Brisbane. South Brisbane in those days had no direct cross-river connection to the other two and Central was served only by suburban trains while Roma Street served both suburban and long distance trains. As well as providing all south of the river services South Brisbane was the terminal for interstate services to and from New South Wales.

On our 1963 trip we spent some time in Brisbane and usually rode the last train to a suburban terminus and slept in the cars after they were stabled, I don't think I slept in a bed for over a month.

Most of the suburban services were provided by loco hauled trains and only a few were diesel hauled. The rolling stock was a mixture of modern stainless steel cars built for conversion to electric multiple unit sets and elderly wooden bodied compartment cars.

Today's photos are all at or near the three city stations. 1036 is at Roma Street and is on a pretty typical country day train , a miscellaneous, not to say motley, rake of wooden cars headed by a clean, dark green Pacific although it could as easily sport a baby blue and white diesel.

All the rest are suburban trains, 754 is approaching South Brisbane with a rake of the aforementioned wooden compartment cars and the three shots of Central show what a smokey hollow it was in those days.

I havn't been to Brisbane for some time and I just had a look at the city on NearMap, I'd say it's pretty much unrecognisable as the same town. It was known then as a very big country town and had very little high-rise developement. It certainly wasn't anything like the southern cities. I liked it.

Just to round this posting off I've also attached a later photo of the evening tramway peak on the Southside, not too far from South Brisbane station. At the time the Brisbane City Council tramways ran a really efficient and intensive city and suburban service. Sadly the Council headed by the Lord Mayor Clem Jones, destroyed the tramways in favour of bus services in the late 1960s.

Most of the negatives I'm using at the moment are none too flash and require a fair bit of work to make them half-way presentable, hence my tardiness.

About Me

It's been a long, long time since I was a teenage railfan and took the photos that I'm posting here. For too few years in my late teens and early twenties I travelled not nearly enough in the eastern States of Australia with a change of clothes, a blanket and a camera. I wish I'd been more places and kept it up for a few more years but I'm grateful for what I was able to do. Family and work became the priorities for the next 40 odd years.
Click on the photos for a large image and clicking on the slideshow will take you to my Picasa site and my other albums.
I've been sending the postings in this blog out as emails over a number of years to an ever expanding mailing list and this blog will be an archive when it's finished.
At the top of the page are links to Mark Bau's "Victorian Railways", Johnny's Pages and Weston Langford's photos.They are all well worth a look and they inspired me to gather my weekly postings together here. Unfortunately we have lost Mike Venn's "Sixties Steam in Australasia" site which was a fotopic site and that company has collapsed.
Thanks must go to the friendly railway people of Australia and to my mum and dad and our extended family.